I just had an opportunity to sit down and watch the new video from the mother, and wow. I think that the mother needs to sit back and realize that not getting the result you wanted does not mean that an ineffective job was done. I can see now why some people were sending her messages accusing her of holding back the investigation, while I still don't think it was appropriate for them to do so. Some other takeaways:
She said the reason that SAR organizations won't self-deploy is because they won't get workman's comp. This shines a lot of light on what the problem is. First of all, I had assumed that the SAR organizations had insurance that wouldn't cover them unless the police gave their okay. This means that SAR groups may only be able to get insurance that covers their regular expenses, not rescues, meaning that they have to apply for reimbursement from the police's workman's comp if anything happens. This means that if they send volunteers out, it's not an insurance company saying, "No, we won't cover you", it's that they won't have any coverage AT ALL.
It would seem that Samantha's mother would like them to be able to buy or be required to buy workman's comp, but I fear that this will be out of the question for most organizations that have only a limited number of full-time staff and rely mainly on volunteers. The result may be the shuttering of many SAR organizations that are small, not the increase in them being able to search as she hopes.
As for her comments about the IRS/student loan/petty criminal "hunts", this is a reflection of someone who doesn't understand police work. IRS searches are electronic as someone mentioned, because people are easily tracked via SSN. Not paying student loans doesn't get you hunted down, but it does affect your credit. Creditors are actually not allowed to harass you all that much, so again, most effects are electronic. As for "hunts for petty criminals", this pretty much doesn't happen. If they miss court, a warrant is issued and their next contact with the police results in an arrest. There is no hunt. For larger criminal cases, the police also don't "hunt" criminals necessarily. Most of this work falls to bondsmen, who are obligated by their insurers to retrieve inmates that have skipped bail. That is why bounty hunters exist. So there's no hunting. However, most of this can be wrapped up once you realize she is comparing apples and oranges. It's not like if Samantha doesn't file her taxes this year, the IRS is going to send some helicopters up to search for her.
Whenever someone falls back to the argument of "you have no proof", I think that this shows how weak of an argument they actually have. We actually do have proof she is not alive in that she has not been seen for more than month, and has not self-rescued. With each passing day, that gets stronger and stronger. I kind of wish that their Facebook page would stop giving her reinforcement. That might give her some time to process her anger.
However, I also think that we have to keep in mind this is someone who is grieving for the sudden loss of a child, even if that child does turn up alive at the end of this. She is going to be angry and irrational, just like anyone is with death (hence the stages of grief). This is also why we see her swinging from one end of the spectrum to the other. She goes from denial to anger because there are people who are making her question her denial. I also see her start to mention some bargaining between her and God. All of these emotions go together, and to those of us who are not feeling what she is feeling, it's upsetting, because we all want Sam to come home. I don't think it will be until winter sets in that she will start to believe the inevitable if they haven't found her and at this point, depression usually sets in. I'm not sure she'll ever move past this without a body, but eventually she'll start to try and find some realistic solutions (called Testing), and then acceptance. Some parents never get there. I know parents who have left their kids' rooms exactly as they were when they died, because they could never understand that they were never coming back, even though they knew they were dead (e.g., suicide, car crash, etc.).
Obviously, KD and Carlton Carr are running the search, and I'm sure that they know that this is likely a recovery mission. They've mentioned this already. I just hope they find her before the weather forces them off the mountain for the season, which would be in about 3 weeks.
